>>>>> On Fri, 09 May 2008 02:19:30 -0600, Andreas Dilger <adilger@xxxxxxx> said:
Andreas> On May 08, 2008 22:18 -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
>> On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 04:48:47PM -0600, Andreas Dilger wrote:
>> > I just noticed lazy_itable_init in the mke2fs.8.in man page.
>> I think > a warning needs to be added there that this is not
>> currently safe to > use, because the kernel does not yet do the
>> background zeroing. There > is nothing in the man page to
>> indicate that this is unsafe...
>>
>> Yeah, I was hoping we would actually get this fixed before 1.41
>> was released.... (i.e., implement the background zeroing).
Andreas> It would still be an issue for 2.6.24 and 2.6.25 kernels,
Andreas> so I think it at least deserves a warning until there is
Andreas> a specific kernel that can be referenced that has this
Andreas> functionality.
I think this patch (from Andreas) would be good for e2fsprogs 1.41.1,
as discussed at Monday call.
--
solofo
Index: b/misc/mke2fs.8.in
===================================================================
--- a/misc/mke2fs.8.in
+++ b/misc/mke2fs.8.in
@@ -221,6 +221,12 @@ initialization noticeably, but it requir
initializing the filesystem in the background when the filesystem is
first mounted. If the option value is omitted, it defaults to 1 to
enable lazy inode table initialization.
+. BR NOTE:
+No kernels do the background zeroing of the inode table at this time,
+so this option is unsafe for production use, due to the risk of
+filesystem corruption if e2fsck has to scan the whole inode table for
+some reason (e.g. incorrect group descriptor checksum).
+
.TP
.B test_fs
Set a flag in the filesystem superblock indicating that it may be
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